


Porcelain & Sand

by winterlace



Series: Porcelain & Sand [1]
Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-03-02
Packaged: 2018-01-12 01:47:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1180454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterlace/pseuds/winterlace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>His name is Charlie. From nowhere with nothing. He has everything going for him.</p>
          </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She only managed to stay in Neptune for a year after Cassidy... after he... after he passed away. She couldn't live with the looks, oh God the way people looked at her! It was almost as if she could hear all the thoughts they had in their heads about it. _Look, there goes that girl who was with that boy, you know, the one that killed all those people. Casued the bus crash. Blew up Woody Goodman's plane. Oh, of course, he was abused. Deeply disturbed. They all called him Beaver apparently...it's cruel what kids do, isn't it?_ She was sick of hearing in her head what the rest of Neptune was thinking. She was sick of the looks. Sick of reading the paper and seeing Dick Casablancas mentioned for throwing yet another ruckus at the Casablancas mansion. Veronica tried to get her to go to one of his infamous parties once... awhile after... but she just couldn't. Veronica mentioned, just once, in passing, that ... that ... that his room was locked. And as far as she could make out... no one had been in it since.

But that doesn't make her feel any better. 

She moved to her cousins. Second, third however many times removed. Not her real cousins of course. They don't know that, though. And that information seems to feel more and more irrelevant after that... night. But it wasn't Neptune. It was far, far, far away from Neptune. Probably as far as you could get. Australia in fact. The otherside of the world. It was different. The people... everyone was kinda... it wasn't like Neptune. No great scandals of the rich and famous. No actors in a prestigious zip (postcodes in Australia). And she was unknown. To everyone but her cousins, but even them on some level. No strange looks. No familiar faces. No crazy rich boys. No Veronica Mars.

That was a slight downside that she had to admit. She liked Veronica. She missed her. They talked some times but mostly stayed in contact via email. There was not a lot of Neptune news in their emails. Veronica kept it strictly friends. She'd managed to get Weevil off murder charges. Even though she had known that he had been intrinsically invovled on some level (Veronica doesn't specify and Mac doesn't ask). She still did jobs for her dad. As well as college and the part-timer at the Hut. Her and Logan were still together... although their relationship was tumultuous at times, at the very best. They seem to be on some variation of a break every other week.

No, she'd changed. Veronica was the only one who called her Mac these days. Her name change was significant. A month after moving she couldn't stand hearing the name 'Mac' on these people's lips. Mac was someone else. Mac was dead. She couldn't stand Cindy. Cindy one step away from Barbie. She just couldn't go by that name. It didn't take her long to decide on one. The one she should have had. She didn't particularly like it, but you rarely ever liked your name, did you? She was never Cindy. She wasn't even Mac now. Instead she was Madison.

She worked part-time at a music store. The independent kind that stocked the CD's and vinyls you could never find in chain stores. And spent the rest of her time doing freelance computer work for people. She earned enough now to get herself her own apartment. She flatted with a girl she meet at the music store. It wasn't what she had always expected it to be. Not the way that she had always imagined it to be. They never threw wild parties, but attended them on occasion, certainly.

She hadn't had a relationship. Whenever one of her friendships got serious or someone became interested she drew away. Sometimes getting called frigid for it. But she remained steadfast. She wasn't the relationship kinda girl. Not now.

It's been two years. Two years of Madison. Three years since... since Cassidy.

She was different person.

****

"Hey Madi, can you fix the metal section? Those kids have gone through and mucked it all up again."

"Sure... no probs, Quinten."

It was one of those mundane days. When the shop wasn't that busy and every minute seemed to drag by. Madison preferred the days when she was constantly busy. The slow movement of the day gave her opportunities to think too much. Something she tried to avoid.

When it was one of these days, Quinten knew what to do. Her boss was a legend. She didn't think anyone could get away with stone washed jeans, leather biker boots and oversized Hawaiian shirts with bright flashly macaws on them. Quinten did it. Did it with a long silver pony tail and silver goatee. Did it while complaining about how annoying it was to have to go outside to smoke these days. He made dirty jokes... any normal guy making perverted jokes and Madison would almost throw up... but Quinten pulled it off. He kept her busy on the off days and gave her time off when she needed it.

Organising was something Madison reveled in. It was boring. It was timeless. It required concentration. Every other employee of the store (there were five including herself) whinged and whined about it. But Madison... Madison rather liked it. It was methodical. Calming. Alphabetizing the collections. The metal collection was rather large. It was Quinten's genre of choice. And apparently all the metal kids liked to mess it up. It was a running prank of some sort.

"Hey Madi!"

"Hi!" It was Chelsea. If Madison hadn't already moved in with Alyce, she would have moved in with Chelsea. She was one of the most entertaining people to know. Threw wild parties. At her flat. At the beach. On the street. At the pub. It was probably a good thing that Madison hadn't ended up flatting with her. She lived in "organised chaos". Kept crazy hours. Had a different boyfriend for everyday of the week. Some times even a girlfriend. Madison admired her. Admired her for her lack of consideration of what the rest of the world might think.

"You know what?" Chelsea says. Everything she says sounds like a statement to Madison. Words you should pay attention to. She asked how she did it once. Chelsea just laughed, striked a pose and said "It's all self confidence baby!"

"What?"

Chelsea's holding a CD, looking somewhat interested in the tracklisting. "I reckon... I reckon you should do something wild with your hair Madi."

Madison snorts quietly and continues the organisation of the CD's. This wasn't unexpected. Every couple of weeks Chelsea decided it was time for Madison to do something. Get a piercing. Get a tattoo. Drink to the point of throwing up or passing out. Take drugs. Have casual sex. Have a makeover. Skydive. Bungee jump. Pretend to drown and get recused by the Surf Lifesavers. Madison got over Chelsea's suggestions after the piercing (Her labaret. It got infected.) and the drink till you pass out. The hangover was not worth it.

"Define wild, Chelsea. I'm not the mohawk kinda girl."

"Naw... I was thinking something a bit more subtle. Like coloured streaks. You could totally pull off the random stripes of blue."

Madison is quiet. She focuses on the CD's and tries not to think of coloured streaks of hair. Of laughter and smiles. Of being abandoned in a hotel room with no clothes by the boy that was supposed to be her boyfriend. She wasn't going to think...

"Did you hear?" Chelsea continued. Moving at ninety miles an hour.

"Hear?"

"Hear that the total spunk from the surfing magazines is coming here for the tournament."

Madison laughed "You know I don't keep up with the total spunks."

Chelsea arches her eyebrow, tries to stop herself from grinning, Madison can tell from the way the corners of her mouth quirk, she then proceeds to roll her eyes and shrug.

"You totally should." She replaces the CD. Notably to Madison. In the exact same place she had plucked it from.

"We'll be having a big party anyway. You'll attend, of course. The spunks American, hearing you're adorkable accent will make him feel right at home. I'm sure."

Madison rolled her eyes. Her accent had faded a little in the past two years but she was still, quite clearly, an American. Chelsea had once described Madison's accent like a short black. Madison had retorted that Chelsea's accent on the other hand, was similar to Vegemite. Chelsea had simply replied, "Hopefully you mean as in clearly unique and not as in tastes like axle grease repulsive."

"Friday night. Make an effort Madi. And think about the coloured hair suggestion." Chelsea leaves, a waft of her spicy perfume floats in the air in her wake. The boys standing outside the store wolf-whistle her as she walks past. She blows them kisses over her shoulder and continues her way down the street.

When Madison first meets Chelsea... she is in awe of her light. Chelsea is like a beacon, a lighthouse in the night. She never dims, never fades and it always there. That's what attracts Madison at first. Then... then Madison realizes... when she's beside Chelsea, no one sees her. She fades out. Washes out. Becomes a shadow. And Madison likes to be part of the shadows.

Heading back to the counter, Madison catches a glimpse of herself in a mirror propped up against the wall. The thought occurs to her. Maybe it is time she changed her hair. She hadn't had it cut properly since before... since Neptune. It was rediculously long and quite honestly had been pissing her off for awhile.

Maybe it was time for another change.

*****

By the time Friday had rolled around Madison was dead set on having a good time. The hairdressers had layered her hair, now shoulder length and had put through a red rinse that quite nearly glowed under light. The change had made her feel better. Even more so since people couldn't stop commenting on how much it suited her or how good she looked.Quinten had even mentioned something about it. And Madison had thought that she could had cut her hair a couple inches short of her scalp and dyed it bright pink and Quinten wouldn't have noticed.

She'd gone and bought herself an outfit as something new to wear with her new hairstyle. A low cut black singlet top and tight black pants, worn with her trust black Chuck Taylors and an extensive collection of silver bracelets. The lack of colour just emphasised the red undertone of her hair more, and her thick aquamarine framed glasses, acquired during one of those unbearable months when she lost her contacts five times.

In the mirror, was reflected someone confident. She always knew the confidence was there. It'd been there before she had just been unsure for so long. But something had changed, progressively, over the past few months. Things had settled down. They felt right. She felt right. Comfortable in her own skin. And Neptune seemed further away than ever.

The party was at a beach house that belonged to Jamie Van Reyk. His parents lived in Sydney and had given him the house as a present for graduating. Jamie Van Reyk was the closest thing around here to anything that resembled an 09er, something of a local celebrity. The beach house was where most of the parties were thrown. At least... Chelsea roped Jamie into throwing them since the last time she threw a party at her flat and a chair went through the third story window and someone puked in her bed.

The house was packed once Madison arrived. People stopped to wave, shout out "Madi!" or "Nice hair!" before disappearing into the voluminous crowd. Beers are in hand and Madison navigates her way through the crowd, careful not to brush against the people smoking, less the cigarette holes in her new clothing, and even more careful not to bump the people with their hands clutching neon plastic cups. Laughter and loud voices echo, drowned out only just by the pumping music, the bass causing the floor to quiver. It was an adrenaline rush.

Chelsea appears out of nowhere when Madison's halfway down the condensed hall. She pushes people out of her way if they don't move for her. Not bothering to say excuse me or even apologise when she pushes someone a little too hard sending their drink all over them. When she reaches Madison she gives her the once over. thumbs up then a loud "Gurl... you're HAWT!" She grabs Madison by the hand and yells into her ear. "C'mon. Come meet Charlie. He's awesome. He's..."

"... Just your type?" Madison supplies and Chelsea laughs.

"Hey Madi!" Madison glances over her shoulder and see's Johnny, pushing his way through the crowd, trying vainly to follow them.

"Hey Johnny!" She calls out, continually being dragged by Chelsea. Watching in faint amusement as Johnny tried to follow them.

"Watcha been up to?" He yells, shoving his way past a burly bloke that gives him a greasy that might of made him keel over and die if he was paying attention.

"You know... the normal." Madison shouted back before Chelsea came to an abrupt halt, Madison stumbled and Chelsea twirls her round. It's not as graceful as it sounds.

"Madison meet Charlie."

When Madison's finally finished stumbling and twirling and looking like a complete and utter dork. She glances up. The face is familiar... maybe she had heard of him before but then realisation struck her like a lightening rod and her jaw drops.

"Ghost world?!?!"

"Dick?!?!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His name is Charlie. From nowhere with nothing. He has everything going for him.

He didn't decide on surfing as a career, really. It just kinda happened. He hadn't been real great at it to begin with anyway. Just a typical white rich boy who really only surfs for the prestige of it all, because his friends did it, cause it was a thing. That was done. It was months after... when he discovered the only place he had any type of solace was out on the ocean, that or after serious volumes of alcohol consumed at one of his infamous Casa de Killer parties, but any type of real solace came from the feel the early morning sun on his back, salt on his lips, the waves rippling beneath him.

He gave up on summer school. That was a joke, seriously, like dude, why did he need to graduate? He had enough money in his trust fund alone to travel the world twice a year and still be able to retire in luxury at forty.

Yeah, he didn't have a direction, an aim or any goal. Any of those things they coached you in at school so that you could succeed at being an adult. His dad had succeeded for him. Why should he have to? He just spent his time surfing. Sitting out on the ocean and riding its waves. Sometimes staying out for so long that the waves had long since blown out and the skin of his hands was wrinkled, pale and tender.

Charlie evolved when he met some guys on the water. Delta, Alpha, Zulu and one guy who went by Foxtrot. When he started hanging out with these guys, they accepted him for what he appeared to them, not for what they knew him to be. They hadn't heard of Dick Casablancas. Or of his father. Or of his brother. And in a way were the beginnings of his new life.

Dick was dead. To be honest, Dick had jumped off that roof with Beaver... or was that Cassidy who had jumped off the roof?

The "pro surfer" thing just fell into his lap when the guys told him to come along with them to an amateur comp. Surprised, when they'd entered him. Even more surprised, or shocked, when he came second. Dick wasn't a good surfer, but Charlie... Charlie kinda was. The surfing mags loved them. The boys with all the weird nicknames. Boys who never spoke of their real names. The lost boys. There was no Dick Casablancas in the mags... only Charlie. Charlie came from nowhere and everything going for him. Charlie had an easy smile and those blue eyes the ladies loved.

Dick Casablancas existed solely in Neptune. And he hadn't spent more than a month since that first amateur.

Logan was the only one he kept in contact with and at that it was more Logan leaving messages on his voice mail and the odd bender when he returned to Neptune. He never went back to Casa de Killer if he could help it. The locked doors still blocked his escape in his dreams. He didn't need to see them in real life. He preferred to spend those scant few days in Neptune at Logan's beach house, the one he finally bought after he got sick of living in the Neptune Grand. The only down side of that was that he had Veronica Mars on his back the whole time he was there.

That's right. That damned Veronica Mars was still in his life. He didn't know how. He thought she'd be the first person he'd forget. No such luck. She and Logan were more like a married couple every time he saw them. For such a dangerous little thing, she didn't look so rough around the edges any more. Her hair was long again. Like before, during the reign of Kane. He still remembered pastel Veronica. Sweet, innocent and naive Veronica and dammit he was doing it again.

Thinking about how his best mate's girlfriend was a babe wasn't cool, man. And he didn't wanna admit that his thoughts had strayed her way more than a few times. Thing was... he kept comparing himself to Veronica Mars. He'd seen what had happened to Ronnie after Lilly got murdered; the changes in her were now being reflected in himself to some extent. Just small useless things. There was Veronica before Lilly and after. Just as there was Dick before Beaver/Cassidy/Beaver and after.

The surf and sand are his solace. The surf and sand he compares all over the world.

He's still at home in his dreams.

**************

She's paler than pale now, the colour draining from her face like the tide, taking the confidence she had at first, with it. He's vaguely aware she hasn't hit him for calling her Ghost World. Vaguely aware that he's holding a neon plastic cup filled with rum and coke. Vaguely aware that the chick that had brought her over had been hitting on him before. In fact, he's not too aware of anything except she's not really Ghost World any more. She's not even a shadow of that girl.

"Excuse me." She says. She's tumbling away from him. For some reason that seems wrong. He's thinking of pinching himself to see if he wakes up or to see if the sharp hurt will give him enough courage to follow her. But he can do neither and really has no idea what he wants to do anyway.

"Huh?"

That chick. The hot one. Celeste? Nah... that wasn't it. Close enough though. She was talking to him. She's a bit like a badly dubbed movie, the words registering after her mouth ceases movement.

"I said, who the hell are you and how the fuck do you know Madison??? Whatcha call her?? Ghost World??? What the fuck does that mean??"

Madison... Madison... Why does that name sound familiar? That's right. That total frigid bitch Madison Sinclair. Why the fuck would she choose a name like that?

"... you better not be some psycho boyfriend or whatever, that she's in witness protection from."

He threw back his head and let go of a bitter laugh.

"She used to date my brother, man." He says carelessly, trying to dismiss her concern. Somewhere in his head alarm bells are a ringin'. Charlie doesn't have a brother. Charlie doesn't have a brother. Charlie is no one, going nowhere. He doesn't regard the fact this is the first time he's owned up to having a brother since that night at the morgue. "Although..." He adds as an afterthought. "She could have ended up in witness protection if he was still alive."

He's moving away. Not caring that Celeste, (he was positive that wasn't her name but who cared?) was staring at him in shock. [Charlie doesn't have a brother. Charlie doesn't have a family. Charlie is no one and going no where.] Pushing to the open French doors. There's just as many people on the deck as there is inside, but over their heads... a lone figure walking down the isolated beach.

**********

"Hey... Ghost World... wait up!!"

"Go away Dick!"

He’s not surprised at that.

“Seriously… Mac… wait up.”

She’s spinning around, her hair flying, furious, screaming. “Don’t CALL ME THAT!!! NO ONE CALLS ME THAT ANYMORE!!” Then she’s on the ground, crying, sobbing… none of those adjectives sound right to him. He needs more to describe it but he never graduated… it’s like she’s almost dry retching grief. He doesn’t get it. He never did understand chicks.

“Hey… uh, hey…” his voice is softer. Knees sinking into the sand beside her, his hand making feather soft, gentle circles on her back and despite how awkward he feels it doesn’t feel wrong. But he wonders anyway. Why he’s there with her and her no longer random bright coloured hair. He asked once, that dangerous Mars girl, where she went? His brothers girlfriend. Didn’t he ask what had happened to her? He can't remember her answer. He didn't really want to know the answer. 

“What are you doing, Dick?”

He hasn’t been Dick for so long that the name sounds foreign, yet warm coming from her mouth. Her eyes are big, wide and glassy in the moonlight. Shining unnaturally.

“Here right now or here as in, where you are?” He feels his brow furrow as he tries to figure out what he just said. He hasn’t felt so inadequate since high school. Her expression has changed dramatically. Faint traces of amusement have marred the disbelief.

“Yeah…uh… that didn’t come out right.” He mumbles sheepishly, moving away, just a little.

There’s silence after that. The sound of the ocean fills it, almost drowning out the faint sounds of the party back up the beach. The music is washed out and squeals only vaguely heard.

“So… Charlie?” Her voice is rough around the edges. He shrugs.

“It’s the name someone else gave me.”

“Oh.”

“And… Madison? Tell me it’s got nothing to do with that bitch Sinclair?”

She laughs a little. It’s liberating. Like hearing someone laugh for the first time in months. He has a gnawing feeling that she hadn’t laughed honestly in awhile.

“Actually it does…” She pauses for a second. “We were swapped at birth.”

He snorts, laughing. Yeah… he could believe that. That would mean Madison wasn’t an 09er… as if… that bitch was made to be an 09er. He glances at her, wondering why she isn’t laughing and sees her expression. She’s looking out onto the ocean and the contours of her face are etched grave.

“You’re serious?” He squeaks, incredulously.

“Hilarious, isn’t it?” She replied, deadpanned. “I was supposed to be an 09er.”

He blinks in shock. She was supposed to be an 09er… oh God… she was supposed to be Madison Sinclair instead of… instead of… hang on… he didn’t even know her real name.

“Can you imagine? Cindy Mackenzie… a fucken 09er.”

“Your real name is Cindy?” This conversation was getting more and more surreal by the moment. Any minute now, a giant shell would rise up out of the ocean, open up, revealing a naked Veronica Mars imitating the goddess Venus… actually… that image was kinda hot. Okay… what was it he had told himself about thinking about his best mate’s girlfriend. Not cool, man.

“One step away from Barbie.” She said, dripping with sarcasm.

Oh the snark… he hadn’t witnessed decent snark since… well, leaving Neptune the last time. Months ago now. More than half a year. He’d stayed in Hawaii with Delta for two months, doing nothing but surfing. He hadn’t realised how long it’s been.

“Why are you here Dick?” She asks again.

He feels like he should be saying he doesn’t know. Because really he doesn’t.

“Surfing competition. It’s been awhile since I went in one. Plus I heard you have real nice waves up here.”

She blinking at him like she doesn’t believe him but maybe that’s just him because he doesn’t believe himself. Why was he here? Why was he here? Someone told him about this competition. Who told him? Why can’t he remember?

“What?” He snaps, “Don’t believe me?”

She’s standing up before he realises. Dusting the sand from her tight black pants in erratic, angry swipes. Watching the sand fall from her was rather memorising. The tiny grains flicking back to the beach to become part of a whole. Anonymous among others exactly like it.

“I have to go.”

He doesn’t say a word to her as she leaves, trudging forcefully over the sand dunes. He’s trying to remember something. Something deep and buried. Something hurtful and scary. Like an image hovering on the edge of your peripheral vision. Something to do with the sand and the ocean.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She deems herself unsuccessful at avoiding her past.

She avoids the beach, the water, the shops. Any place that she might see him. She makes her flatmate do the shopping and after the incident with Chelsea at the music store she takes her annual leave that Quinten’s been trying to force on her for the past twelve months. In two weeks it’ll be all over. Life would go back to Madison normal and he will be just a faint memory. Her Neptune past can return to the background.

Even as she thinks this, goes through the motions of her plan, repeats it like a mantra, holds on to it like a prayer, she knows he’ll never be faint in her mind. He never was. There’s brilliant flashes of Neptune High halls in her mind, Dick and Beaver, Beaver and Dick, Dick all bright smiles, tasteless jokes and ingenuous dance moves. Beaver… Cassidy… Beaver… Cassidy… all grey shadows and underlying dark, dark, dark thoughts. And then she's alone in a hotle room without her clothes and he's on the street below... brain matter scattered across the pavement, carelessly. 

She’d always thought it was because they always hung shit on him. The other 09er’s, like Beaver [Cassidy] was there personal joker… the jester to the high court. She doesn’t know why she thinks of that metaphor for it, maybe in the back of her mind it’s Veronica murmuring on the day of Cassidy’s [beaver… BEAVER] funeral about how being a princess in the 09er’s was something that she never regretted until Lilly died. But now Beaver [Cassidy] was gone she realised just bad it got. She wished she’d been anonymous from the start. Like her. But it was never that way with her, her life… it hadn’t meant much till Veronica… till Veronica Mars walked through school that day with her choppy haircut and new attitude. Till she had found her in a carpark and broken into her car.

She looked up to Veronica Mars, always.

At night the dreams return. Dark looks for a darker soul. Beaver/Cassidy/Beaver and the bright mocking laugh of Dick in the background. The feeling of waking up with no clothes. Things that never happened. Sometimes she is stumbling about by a pool with a white dress on. She doesn’t know why. This never happened to her.

She has to really search through the wardrobe to find the last bottle of sleeping pills she bought. The plastic container is almost full; she remembers buying them just in case… she’s glad. From that night on she takes two little blue tablets half an hour before she wants to go to sleep.

She wakes up achy and tired but there are no dreams. That she remembers.

By the fifth day she is climbing the walls from spending too much time inside. She makes it till the evening, sneaking out to walk along one of the rocky back beaches and sits down to watch the sunset. The fingers of yellow, crimson and fiery orange stretch out across the ocean almost as if they wish to take hold of her and drag her down with the sun.

“They’re different everywhere, you know… but I still compare them to the ones from Neptune.”

She doesn’t hear him come up behind her, but when she hears him speak her skin begins to crawl. The drawl is still the same. She wonder’s placidly if he laughs the same and as often. She wonders if she's been kidding herself this entire time trying to hide from him. From Neptune.

It’s registered in her mind that he doesn’t refer to that place as home but by its name. She hasn’t referred to Neptune as home since Beaver [Cassidy] and graduation. The wheels of her mind are ticking over, telling her it never was her home… she never belonged… but she knew that once she did.

She doesn’t ask him to join her but he sits in the sand beside her anyway, just far enough away from her that she can't feel the heat from his body, a column of cool air between them. She doesn’t know if this is calculated or not but she silently thanks him anyway.

“They came back. You know, the dreams, this time he’s not Beaver… he’s not Cassidy… he’s just dark. Black… and I am stumbling around in a white cotton dress that I never owned.” She says.

She feels him shuddering rather than sees it. She feels like shuddering too but the breeze is warm enough to take away the coldness of the fake memories.

“It’s from that article.” He replies softly. “The one they ran in the paper… when they found out he raped Veronica.” This time there is a visible shudder with his words. She remembers now. Veronica so angry that Lamb admitted to that… that Lamb embellished grand stories of how they were closing in on the boy who had raped Veronica Mars. She remembers Veronica ranting and raving and punching walls and Logan just watching with wide, wide, wide eyes.

She remembers reading it when Veronica thrust the paper into her arms. She remembers how vague and distorted and detached the whole thing seemed. Former Sheriff Keith Mars’ daughter Veronica Mars walking into newly made Sheriff Lamb’s office with a white cotton dress and long, long blonde hair crying as she told him that she had been drugged and raped. How Sheriff Lamb had made it his personal mission to find out what bastard did it to her, and how trying to keep the girl’s reputation in tact had kept the rape quiet as possible.

Remembering this she almost feels sick. More for Veronica than anything. She remembers Princess Veronica, although, it’s more because she used to wish she was part of the Lilly/Veronica/09er crowd when she was younger. Wished she were a Princess in the awesome foursome. But she never really noticed Veronica as such. Not until that day… a few weeks after the rumours started. The day she walked through the corridors with her head held high and cropped hair.

“Logan told me, you know, that Lamb had told her to ‘go see the wizard’… you know, if that fucken dickhead hadn’t said that he might have found out the Beav… Cassidy did that and all those people wouldn’t have gotten killed.”

“He was a fucked up kid, Dick.”

“Yeah… and I was his brother… I lived with the dude for years and never really noticed him.”

She knows what he means. She was with him but she never saw him. She only saw Beaver… the downtrodden, shy, geeky brother of obnoxious Dick Casablancas. She never really saw Cassidy.

She doesn’t understand how they got to this point. When they are saying things that they understand, deep, dark things that have been needed to be said for a long time. That have been waiting to be said. She feels like any rational person wouldn’t understand this conversation, she’s not sure if she does. But it means something to her none the less.

“Beaver didn’t do those things. Cassidy did.”

The distinction has been in her mind for awhile. It’s just clearer now that she realises she called him Cassidy but never knew him as Cassidy.

“Like you said before.” Dick replies. His voice a little rougher around the edges. “He was a fucked up kid.”

They sit in silence until the sun is fully submerged, the ocean dripping golden then slowly turning a deep calming blue.

“What are you doing here Dick?”

The words aren’t as harsh as she wants them to be. She wants them to accuse him of something but either she doesn’t know what to accuse him of or she just can’t make her voice have that edge any more.

He shrugs, dragging himself up out of the sand and she makes an effort to look at him. It’s the first time she’s really seen him. His hair is darker in parts but that could just be the light. He dressed the same, loose jeans and layered shirts. He was still as tall. Still had a cocky egotistical demeanour. But there was also something else. Something he didn’t have in Neptune. Something almost reserved.

“Surfing competition. Veronica suggested it to me. God… wait till she finds out you were here. It’ll be the interrogation of the century.”

“Dick… she knows I’m here.”

He pauses. “Uh… she does?”

“We send each other e-mails every other week.”

His face scrunches up at that. Like he’s just found out Santa Claus never really existed. She has a feeling that Beaver was the one to tell him that piece of childhood information. He’s just the same old confused Dick for a minute… Then another shrug and careless wave of his hand. She feels for a minute if she’s been dismissed, as if whatever it is, is too complicated for him to process or even care about.

“I got you something…” he says quietly. Almost as if he’s ashamed of it. “I’ve been trying to find you all week and that Celeste girl did shit all to help me.”

Celeste…Celeste? Who the fuck is Celeste she thinks for a minute. But then he’s thrown an obscenely brightly coloured box at her feet. It’s so orange it’s almost neon and she picks it up carefully, letting her fingers feel the grooves and embossing. Even in the hastily dimming light she can make out that it’s a box of neon orange hair dye.

Goosepimples rise on her flesh, sending ripples of a foreign watery feeling down her spine. Halfway between pleasure and fear. She turns to say thankyou but he’s not there and she wonders when he learned to leave without making a big deal of it. She feels a little awkward because of it. The time when Dick going anywhere was a fanfare was still residing in her mind with a disturbing clarity. The fact that now he could sneak up and sneak away without making much of a sound scared her.

It scared her because Beaver/Cassidy/Beaver did that and it makes her think that she doesn’t really know Dick Casablacas at all.

She sits on the beach until she can barely make out the shapes of the rocks around her then she takes the box of fluoro orange and heads back to her flat… Chelsea is waiting out the front with a practised tap-tap-tap of her foot and a nasty smile.

“So Mac…” Chelsea spits out. And she remembers that Chelsea just hates to be manipulated and lied to. It stems from her mother… “What’s the good word with the surfers? Say one in particular, Charlie? Or is he Dick?”

It’s an interesting question. She can’t help but think about it. Who is he really? Charlie or Dick? Who is she really? Madison or Mac?

“You know I thought you were different!! I didn’t think that you were like all the others. I thought that maybe you could be better than that and yet here I am once again being proved completely and utterly wrong… well fuck you Madison! Or Mac or whatever the fuck your name is!”

Chelsea’s turning away with those sharp bitter movements one uses when one has been hurt. And she can feel the words bubbling up in her throat, it blocks out all other feeling, like the cold metal of the keys in her hand.

“It’s Cindy you know…” She chokes out. “It was Dick's brother. And he jumped from the top of the Neptune Grand, that’s a hotel,” there’s cotton wool lodged in her throat making it so hard to swallow, her eyes watering from the pain of it. “He blew up a bus and killed a whole heap of people. He raped my best friend. He left me alone… in a hotel room with no clothes…”

She can’t stop herself then. She’s using the wall to keep her upright, her body quaking with the ripples of pain her sobs send through her body.

She knows the truth.

She’s always been Mac.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the end, he's left with what he begins with

He’s woken by a fierce knocking at the door. The kind of desperate, soul shattering, if you don't open the door right damn now something bad will happen, knocking. He thinks the door might buckle under the ferocity of it. And despite being rich, he’s enough of a tight arse to not want to pay the hotel for it. He stumbles out of the nest of rumpled sheets, blankets and doonas on the bed, trips over shoes and clothes strewn all over the room. Knocks over one the surfboards propped against the wall, trying to find the light switch and then when the light flooded the room, he was almost blinded by the brightness of it.

The knocking doesn’t relent at any point and he thinks he can heard the groan of the wood strain beneath the exuberant pressure of it.

“Dude… fucken wait already. I’ll get there.”

He doesn’t bother to check who it is through the peep hole… (he was never quite sure what those things were really called), he just flings the door open. It cracks unnecessarily with the force and this tiny white fist comes out of no where and smacks him right on the nose sending bright sparking fireworks pulsing in his vision and he swears he can feel his pulse in his eyeballs… he spits every cuss word he ever learned. Some of them even in different languages.

“Oh Jesus! I’m so sorry!”

He recognises the voice but not the touch. Soft, soft, soft, soft hands gripping the sides of his face. Through his squinting eyes he can barely make out the watercolour wash of pale ivory skin, dark, dark eyes and brunette hair. A distorted moan slips from his lips, he can feel something hot and wet slide down his lips and just the thought of blood makes his head feel light. He knows the warm sticky feel of blood against skin well.

He’s not quite sure how he gets to the couch. Not quite sure when she leaves and comes back with a damp cloth to press gently to his bleeding nose. When he realises it’s a tea towel pressed against his nose he wonders where the fuck she got that from… he didn’t even know he had a tea towel.

The hands are against his, helping him hold the tea towel up. They are soft; smooth, and delicate… they remind him of those expensive antique porcelain dolls his mom used to collect. The ones that sat uselessly in the “formal dining” cabinet gathering dust until one day he dared Beav to get one out. He was four and dropped it; it fell three feet to the hard floor… the head neatly decapitated from the body.

“God I can’t believe I did that!!! I’m so sorry… I wasn’t even concentrating. Does it hurt a lot? Oh God… I hope it’s not broken. Maybe I should take you to the hospital, Dick? Dick! Dick! Hello?! Can you hear me? Dick? Dick!!”

Fuck this chick knew how to talk. Vaguely he wishes she might shut up. Maybe he could get her to shut up. Ok… stop that line of thinking. Who the hell was it? No one called him Dick any more, where was he again? He wasn’t in Neptune was he? He kinda missed being Dick… He wonders if he was still asleep and if this is all just a bizarre dream except for the hot pain in his nose.

“Hey…”

Those hands had pulled away. He could miss those hands. Those soft, fragile, porcelain hands. He’d like to have those hands forever… that was a bit of a disturbing thought. He never knew he had a hand fetish.

“I shouldn’t have come.”

“Huh?”

He’s reluctant to open his eyes; the lashes already stuck together from the excessive watering that happened when he got smashed in the nose. They pull at each other while he tries to open them, just increasing the watering. His eyes feel like they’re swollen. His whole face feels like it's swollen.

When he finally managed to get his eyes open he sees a distressed Mac gathering up her purse from the floor. It looks like she’s crying, or like she’s been crying. She must have dropped her purse when she smacked him one.

He has a compulsion to say something to her but his throat is just not working.

She’s startled when she turns to look at him. Her eyes widen like a deer in the headlights and Dick never really knew what that expression meant until right now. He feels like her pain is his pain. Deceived, betrayed… left in grief by a mass murdering brother/boyfriend. He hasn’t felt this human since Cassidy was alive… no Beaver… it was Beaver. Cassidy killed Meg Manning… killed all those kids on the bus. Raped Veronica…

“Hey…” He says again.

“I have to go.”

She’s turning and almost running out the door and … God, he’s running after her, cause he just can’t let her get away because she’s the only one who knows what it’s like. He’s sure of it. Veronica blamed him. Blamed him for throwing her into a room with Cassidy. He blamed himself. He just needed her… her to tell him it just wasn’t him that fucked up.

“Mac! Stop!”

She’s poised at the top of the stairs… prepared to go flying down them and right out of his life forever but goddamn it.

“Please.”

He can’t remember the last time he said please. He can’t remember ever saying please. No… he did. He was seven maybe eight and buying an ice cream from the truck that had pulled up outside Casa De Killer, and he didn’t say please and Beaver… the Beav had elbowed him really hard in the ribs. And he went gone bright red then amended by saying please and oh God… when the truck left he had shoved Beaver so that he dropped his ice cream all over the asphalt.

“What! What do you want, Dick? Don’t you see I’ve got nothing to offer you! Why are you even here? For fucks sake why can’t you just leave me alone?”

“Because.”

“This is insane!” She cries, burying her face in her hands.

He’s careful when he finally makes his way to her. Careful when his fingers brush her bare shoulder, careful when they trace their way up her neck, careful when his palm cupped her cheek.

“Mac.”

And those eyes were staring into his and fuck, fuck, fuck… he knew it. He knew it before he did yet he didn’t realise until he was there. Her lips were soft. Smooth. Perfect. And he was sure if there was anything remotely true about there being an afterlife… well the Beav would have been watching with white knuckled fists. Dick Casablancas was never supposed to kiss Mac. Cindy. Madison. Whoever she was. She was never supposed to even move into his orbit.

Dick Casablancas was also never supposed to back pedal into his messy hotel room with a stunning brunette in his arms.

Well actually… that had happened a couple of times. But Dick Casablancas was most definitely not supposed to back pedal into his hotel room with Cindy Mackenzie. That was the last thing on his to do list. Now it had suddenly changed. It was at the top of his to do list. Both of them.

He doesn’t stumble or trip this time. He navigates around the surfboards, clothing and discarded shoes perfectly. Like it was a well-worn path. He pulls her down on top of him, on top of the bed and not once do his lips leave hers. Not once since he first placed them there. The kissing is wild, teeth gnaw gently on lips, tongues dance and some how he needs more and, God, she does too… unless there was another reason for her grinding her hips so demandingly against his.

His lips travel to her neck… moving lightly across her skin, her perfectly smooth porcelain skin. He nips lightly and her breathing deepens, a breathy moan slipping past her now swollen lips. Her small hands are slipping under his shirt before he really realises it. Dragging it up and over his head, she licks, nips and sucks on every piece of skin she can reach and, God, it feels so fucken awesome and he can’t help bucking his hips and, God, he just needs to get his jeans off. He needs to get her out of her clothes. He needs to be inside her.

When he finally gets her top off, he thinks he may have broken one of the straps in his exuberance. Her bra provides another challenge, and Dick, once priding himself on being able to undo any bra on any woman was stuck but pleasurably shocked when Mac leant back, reached around sensuously and popped the clasp. Sliding the straps down carefully… his eyes were locked on hers… watching the fingertips slide across her skin and oh... FUCK!

Dick had always been a boob man. He loved the ta-tas. Usually the bigger the better. He didn’t care if they were fake as long as he could touch them. But Mac… her boobs were smaller, yet there wasn’t one thing that made Dick disappointed with that. The sight of her dusky pink nipples sent him into action. Pushing her onto her back and taking one of those perfect little nipples into his mouth.

He loved the way she moaned and speared her fingers through his hair. The ways her hands wouldn’t stop moving, gripping, even the sharp bite of nails in his back was erotic. And when he was naked and above her, staring at her naked and below him somehow it felt just… perfect. And not wrong at all and there's something that screams from the back of his mind that it should feel wrong. It should feel so wrong but it doesn't and he just donesn't care.

His eyes never left hers when he slids inside her. She was unbelievably tight, hot and wet and, God, he wanted to stay inside her forever. It’s like a watercolour painting. Having sex with Mac. The colours are just dreamy yet a bit more vibrant. There are sparks flying through his veins, and pumping away inside of her is leaving him metaphysically breathless.

He’s determined on making her come before him. Normally he doesn’t really care unless he’s really into the girl. He likes the way she’s participating, her legs flung around his hips, hands travelling… teeth, tongue, lips…a faint blush over her body and she tastes and smells like heaven… if he knew what heaven tasted and smelt like. Gasps and moans and breathily whispers of “Oh God…”, “Yes”, “Harder”, “Dick!”.

And then… he can feel it. Her hips thrust up hard against his and she’s clamping down and screaming so loud for a brief nano second some concern for the neighbouring guests flickers through Dicks occupied mind. And with her clinging, gripping, clasping him he feels his own orgasm boil up through his veins. He thinks he’s calling out her name, or yelling… he’s not sure. His ears are buzzing, sparks flying in front of his eyes and synapses bursting in his brain.

When he comes to… he doesn’t realise he’s coming to; he’s collapsed beside her. Those eyes staring into his. And then he realises… he just fucken blacked out man! He doesn’t ever remember sex being so good that he BLACKED OUT!!!

“Are you okay?”

Her voice is a little rough around the edges. But he kind of expected that considering all the screaming and yelling that just happened. He blinks a few times and gently strokes the side of her porcelain smooth cheek.

“Dick?”

Her voice reminds him of sand. The itchy, grainy way it wormed it’s way into every crevice of your body. Porcelain and sand. Porcelain and sand.

And he’s left with what he began with.


End file.
